


The Cornwall Job

by PlaidAdder



Series: Missing Pages [17]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M, Story: The Adventure of the Devil's Foot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-14 02:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14761055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlaidAdder/pseuds/PlaidAdder
Summary: August 3, 1891My Lord,Enclosed please find your advance payment for the Cornwall job. It pains me to be unable to provide anything short of complete satisfaction to any client, let alone one as illustrious and as important to the firm as your lordship. In my defense, let me humbly note that I did urge you against this scheme when you first proposed it. My late brother and I have shared many things, but his obsession with achieving the personal destruction of Mr. Sherlock Holmes has never been one of them.*****Professor Moriarty's younger brother Andrew explains to a client why he will be unable to complete an important commission.This story, "Contra Mundum," "Tempus Fugit," and "What the Brandy's For" all narrate the same events, from different points of view. It doesn't really matter which order you read them in, but the events take place shortly after "A Close Shave."





	The Cornwall Job

 August 3, 1891

My Lord,

Enclosed please find your advance payment for the Cornwall job. It pains me to be unable to provide anything short of complete satisfaction to _any_ client, let alone one as illustrious and as important to the firm as your lordship. In my defense, let me humbly note that I did urge you against this scheme when you first proposed it. My late brother and I have shared many things, but his obsession with achieving the personal destruction of Mr. Sherlock Holmes has never been one of them. As a solo practitioner, Mr. Holmes's impact on the firm was negligible. I would estimate that in the first five years of the firm's operation, Mr. Holmes was responsible for the loss of perhaps 5% of our annual revenue. Every firm hopes to operate at 100% efficiency; but the truth is that no firm ever does. Of course  _this_ fiscal year has been a disaster. Even your timely  and most appreciated intervention failed to prevent severe and costly losses. But many a firm has survived such a catastrophe and flourished in later years. I tried to persuade James to put his energy into rebuilding. He was adamant that no reorganization could be attempted until Mr. Holmes had been eliminated. Colonel Moran, who has ever been James's bad angel, was in agreement. It was my professional opinion even then, however, that in the future the real danger to the firm would be the Society for the Protection of Single Ladies. Mrs. Watson and her band of spinsters have grasped the power of organization, and have proved impossible to suborn. The exposure of Westaways, which I fear can no longer be averted, will alienate several of our most reliable clients, and be a serious blow to our firm's stability.

However, like your lordship, I was quite disturbed to read the account in the  _Plymouth Shipping News_ of the Lady Frances Carfax's heroic escape from, and defeat of, Holy Peters and Captain Carey. Lady Carfax is known to be a member of the SPSL. Though the papers dismissed it quickly, my informant in the Plymouth Coast Guard gave me a full report of 'Holy' Peters's narrative. I believe it to be credible, except as regards his own behavior. I wish to state unequivocally, my Lord, that Peters was never an employee of the firm. James approached him some years ago about doing some contract work for us, but Peters was extremely disagreeable about coming to terms, and nothing came of it. He hated the idea of giving us a commission almost as much as the citizens of this fair isle hate taxes. I certainly had no idea that he intended to sell Mr. Sherlock Holmes to me--nor would I have offered him his asking price. I congratulate my late brother on having the foresight not to connect our firm with an agent who would do something as reckless as abducting Mr. Sherlock Holmes and smuggling him from France to England  _on spec._

But to return to the point: as I believe I mentioned during our initial interview,  _finding_ Mr. Holmes and Doctor Watson would not be difficult, and it hasn't been. As I said, the ladies of the SPSL cannot be suborned; but some of them can be got round, and Mr. Windibank had only to revive Mr. Hosmer Angel for twenty-four hours in order to deceive Miss Sutherland into providing the information that enabled us to trace them. The difficulty, as I had always anticipated, would be in actually killing them. My late brother, egged on by Colonel Moran, devoted an imprudently large percentage of his dwindling resources to this task, without success; and that was in London, where hundreds of people are carried off by ordinary accidents every day. He paid dearly for the failure of his final gambit. I have no intention of paying such a price--even, my Lord, for you. My late brother was a genius and an artist, and consequently attracted to the intangibles. I am a man of business.

Unwilling to refuse your Lordship, however, and reasoning that some additional liquidity would come not amiss, I took the job and the advance, and gave the assignment to an intelligent, if somewhat pompous, little fellow with the improbable name of Calvin Coleridge. (He is indeed connected to the poet, distantly. If given an opportunity, he can recite the whole of "Kubla Khan," including the opening author's note.) Coleridge is the sharpest of the managers left to us, most of whom are currently either incarcerated or awaiting trial. He suggested using something that could be found on the premises, and therefore could not be traced to us. I agreed. He gave me to understand that in this case, there might be something on the premises that was, as he put it, "a little bit extra." Evidently Dr. Leon Sterndale, the cottage's owner, has accumulated quite a collection of exotic plants. Dr. Sterndale gave a lecture at the Plymouth Temperance Hall some months ago on the ordeal poisons of central Africa, and Coleridge attended and took careful notes. Coleridge therefore suggested poisoning them with one of Sterndale's own specimens--a powder known as _radix pedis diaboli_. He assured me it would be nearly impossible to trace, even if there was an autopsy; that there would be no danger to our agent, who could lay the trap and then withdraw to watch the results; and that even if we were unable to dispose of the bodies before they were discovered, the circumstances of the deaths would be so bizarre and leave such a stamp of horror that the local populace would put it down as Satan's judgment upon two squatters and not press for an identification or investigation.

I approved his proposal and sent him about his way. I was so confident of his success that I was rather surprised when, two days later, he appeared in my office and said he wished to speak to me about the Cornwall job. 

"Were you able to complete the mission?" I replied, with some asperity.

He turned his bowler hat in his hands. "Well, sir, only up to a point, sir."

I asked him to explain himself. 

Coleridge told me that his agent had successfully infiltrated the villa during the night, while the opponents were out for a swim at the beach by their house. As he had observed during his reconnaissance that they never lit the lamps, he placed a sufficient quantity of the powdered  _radix pedis diaboli_ in the range in the kitchen. He then settled down in a nearby shed to observe results. At about nine o'clock that morning, the front door to the villa banged open and the two targets lurched out of it. Mr. Holmes was carrying, or dragging, Dr. Watson. The agent was at first quite satisfied with Watson's condition--which was, convulsing and raving--but disappointed that Mr. Holmes seemed to show no ill effects except an extreme concern for his friend. However, it all came to nothing; Dr. Watson recovered, and the two of them withdrew to a gazebo at the edge of the lawn overlooking the coast. The agent having no explicit instructions to make an overt attack, he merely observed the targets until they re-entered the house.

"Did he learn anything useful?"

"Well, he did overhear them talking on their way in."

"What were they talking about?"

Colerdige cleared his throat, and then said, "Trousers, sir."

"I beg your pardon?" I replied.

"Well clothing generally, sir."

"I don't understand. Was it some kind of code?"

"No, sir. I don't think so, sir. He says that as they passed into the house, Doctor Watson was saying if we're going to have company you really will have to dress, and Mr. Holmes said I suppose I must, and Doctor Watson said I don't understand what all of a sudden you have against trousers. And then Mr. Holmes laughed and said something about he promised himself and being ready for anything every time and Doctor Watson said well this is very touching but completely impractical, and Mr. Holmes said--"

"Excuse me," I interrupted. "I am to understand that...all this time...Mr. Holmes was  _not_ wearing trousers?"

"No, sir. Stark naked, sir."

I pondered this datum for a moment, but could make no sense of it. "Well," I sighed. "What further steps have you taken?"

"None, sir. We thought we should consult with you first, as it seems a bit of an odd job, this."

"Has the agent any further suggestions?"

Coleridge here paused. After further prompting, he said, "To tell the truth, sir, this is what I wanted to speak to you about. The agent's done a bunk, sir."

"Mr. Coleridge, I have repeatedly asked you not to use criminal argot in your communications with me. I have not troubled to learn it. I am not a criminal myself."

"Of course, sir. I beg your pardon, sir. The agent, sir, after delivering his report to me the following morning, said to me, well, he said, farewell Cal old pal, things here isn't what they were and I'm off to find a better situation."

I was, naturally, alarmed. I remonstrated with Mr. Coleridge. My late brother did not allow his employees to move on to other 'situations.' Mr. Coleridge acknowledged that was the best policy for the firm; but how, he asked rhetorically, was he to enforce it now, with Colonel Moran sacked and nobody promoted to his place? I rebuked him for his insolence. The upshot is, he would give the job to another agent. He thought very similar, though less dramatic, results could be achieved via smothering them in their beds. Best practices, he said, would be to employ one agent per target, and would I authorize the extra expense? Faced with the possibility of your Lordship's displeasure, I decided to risk it.

Again, other business claimed my attention until a quietly agitated Mr. Coleridge appeared in my office Thursday morning. The smothering had not been accomplished. The one agent that Mr. Coleridge was able to locate the following day reported that they had forced the side door, entered through the kitchen, proceeded upstairs to the bedroom, and located the targets. They then discovered that Dr. Watson sleeps with a revolver beneath his pillow, and is a decent shot even when startled from a sound sleep.

"Was anyone actually shot?" I said.

"No, sir."

"I am glad to hear at least that we shall not be put to the expense of treating their injuries. You should perhaps have a conference with your team before making a third attempt, reviewing past practices and considering how you might improve your performance going forward."

Coleridge cleared his throat.

"Yes, Mr. Coleridge?" I said.

"I'm afraid the 'team' has buggered off, sir."

"Mr. Coleridge!" I remonstrated. 

"I apologize for my language, sir, indeed I do. But it's very provoking, sir. These are two old hands, sir, very seasoned, and yet one of them went missing immediately and the other quit as soon as he'd delivered his report."

I was most annoyed to hear this. Recruitment is expensive and retention is crucial to the business model. "Did he say anything about _why_?"

"No, sir, he just said he wouldn't go back into that house again if he were to be boiled for it, and when I said oh yes you will, he said oh to the devil with all of this, and ran off. And I haven't been able to contact him since."

"Very well," I said. "That's three agents missing and unaccounted for. Have we a fourth?"

Coleridge considered the matter and said, "Not within call, sir. I'd have to get someone down from London, sir."

"Do it then," I said.

The London staff has been greatly depleted, but we did retain several characters who might get the job done. When three days passed without a visit from Coleridge, I hoped the matter might be resolving itself at last. However, upon arriving at the railway offices early yesterday morning, I found a drunken reprobate sleeping it off at the top of the steps leading up to the front door. As I passed him, I noticed that a bit of paper was pinned to the sleeve of his coat. A closer examination showed that it had been attached to the sleeve, not with a pin or needle, but with the blade of a horn-handled and rather ugly-looking knife.

The note was addressed to me.

I slid the knife out of the sleeve and detached and unfolded the note. It read:

"My dear Mr. Moriarty:

The next man who attempts to harm Dr. Watson will be returned to you in pieces. Sincerely, Mr. Sherlock Holmes."

I left the snoring hulk behind me on the steps, closed the door, gained my office, and sent the boy with a message asking Coleridge to come collect his lost property, and then to report to me as soon as possible.

Coleridge, however, did not report until the following day; and he had nothing but bad news for me.  By the time he arrived, he said, the agent was no longer on the steps. Mr. Coleridge thought to check the station itself, and was just able to observe the agent boarding the 9:16 to London, and waving at him, cheekily, from the window.

"This is insufferable, Mr. Coleridge," I said. "Well, tell me what your fifth agent has planned."

Mr. Coleridge cleared his throat again. I braced myself, with dread.

"Sir, there is no fifth agent."

"I don't think I understand you, Mr. Coleridge."

"Sir, I was in London all day yesterday and I couldn't engage anyone. Word has got about, sir."

"I see," I said. "Well, double the fee then."

He protested that he had already done so. (Without my authorization! but I must not reprimand him for his initiative.) I expressed my willingness to triple it. Mr. Coleridge looked at me wearily and said, "I don't think I've made it quite clear to you, sir. It's not the money. It's the rumors, sir. About the house, sir. They're everywhere and they're getting more and more outlandish. Demons and giant spiders and Lord knows what-all. They think the place is haunted."

"Nonsense," I told him. "That class will do anything for money. I estimate that we could still recoup a profit if we go as high as--"

Here, little Mr. Coleridge cleared his throat so very loudly that I had to stop and inquire.

"I don't want to say it, sir," he said, pitiably distressed. "It reflects badly on me, sir, and on the firm, and on our late revered founder, sir. But the fact is, sir, I've seen everyone. And sir, I hate to say it sir, but there's no getting around facts. And the fact is: _No one wants the Cornwall job._ "

"Well," I said, rather at a loss. "This is most dispiriting and unwelcome news, Mr Coleridge. I had hoped for better from you, I really had. I entrust you with a very important commission; now you tell me to my face there is nothing to be done. What am I to say to that?"

"Does it have to be outright murder, sir?" he said. "Cause I think we could easily put 'em in prison, and ruin 'em that way. From what the men have told me during the reconnaissance phase, the targets are breaking at _least_ one of England's laws in there, sir."

"Yes, Mr. Coleridge, I applaud your ingenuity. But our client does not wish them to be _ruined_. Our client would like them to be _dead_."

"But why, sir?"

"I never ask a client why, Mr. Coleridge."

He scratched his head again. "I know, sir. I'm only saying, sir, that perhaps you should offer him some alternatives. Because I don't think we can deliver _dead_ , sir. I really don't."

We were at an impasse. I dismissed Mr. Coleridge and said I would recall him when I had made a final decision. I was still reviewing my options when there was another ring at the door-bell. My page ushered in an enormously corpulent gentleman wearing an enormously expanse of grey gabardine. He lifted his top hat to me, bowed slightly, and took a chair before I offered him one. I remained standing, hoping to overawe him into an awareness of his bad manners. He merely smiled at me, with a twinkle in his eye, and said, "You evidently don't know me."

I fumbled for a sharp reply, but was unable to find one. 

"My name is Mr. Mycroft Holmes," he said. "Pray take a seat."

I don't think I need to tell  _you_ , my Lord, how astonished I was to hear it. I did, in fact, fall back into my chair. Mr. Holmes leaned back comfortably, causing the joints of the chair to groan slightly. He gave me an appraising look, and finally said, "You must drop it, Mr. Moriarty. You really must, you know."

"I don't know what you're talking about, sir; and I must ask you to leave my office at once."

"According to my calculations," he said, in a curiously negligent and yet somehow quite authoritative tone, "you have reached the tipping point on the Cornwall job. You have already engaged four assassins on this matter, all of whom have left your service as a result, taking their advance pay with them. Factoring in the expenses of recruitment and training, and the future damage to the firm done by the extremely negative word-of-mouth, I estimate that this job has already, in terms of the real costs, eaten up the advance. Any further expenses you are put to must now come out of your own operating reserves, which are currently at their lowest ebb. And you have no guarantee of success. On the contrary, all the evidence suggests that further attempts will simply plunge you deeper into unrecoverable expenses, pushing the firm ever closer to the brink of financial collapse."

My Lord, I must own that all morning I had felt I must inevitably reach that conclusion. I think he perceived it; for he said, "From a financial point of view, Mr. Moriarty, it's a fool's errand. Surely you can see that. Our brothers have always been men of passion. All great artists are. But you and I, sir, are calculators. We are the cavaliers of the cold hard fact. The bottom line is our sword, and the actuarial table our shield. And calculator to calculator, sir, I tell you from experience that attempting to alter the career of Mr. Sherlock Holmes is now and will always be a losing investment."

"Now see here," I said. "You were not invited into this office and you shall leave it at once or I shall call the police."

"As you can see," he said, gesturing toward his ample girth, "I am inertia personified. Difficult to set in motion; and, once moved, difficult to stop. Nevertheless, Mr. Moriarty, I take my leave of you; and I beg you, for your own safety, to say nothing of my visit here to your client. It will not put you in a very favorable light. I should think about getting out of this business, if I were you. You still have capital, which is otherwise doomed to hemorrhage slowly as you are ground up in operating expenses. You could easily invest it in something more profitable. There are easier ways to make a living; and even, if as I suspect you are one of those for whom a simple _living_ is not enough, easier ways to make a killing. We live in an age, Mr. Moriarty, of South African goldfields, of Argentine canal schemes, of thousands of splendidly legal and above-board ways to take a man's money and give him nothing for it in return. Turn your attention to some of them, sir. All the contacts you made to protect your criminal enterprise will serve you equally well in your legitimate enterprises. It will never come amiss, whatever your industry, to have the ear of a Lord Bellinger, or of a Lord Holdhurst."

He looked at me very keenly as he delivered that last part.

"This is insufferable, sir!" I shouted.

He heaved himself up from his chair, and took up his top hat.

"I do apologize if anything I've said has given offence," he said, meekly, half turning to go. "It was good advice, and kindly meant. I find I have formed a kind of step-brotherly affection for you; and even for your Mr. Coleridge. A very valuable man, that. Resourceful, and persistent, and a very competent and well-liked manager."

In fact, I've always found Mr. Coleridge all of those things; but I was most astonished to hear Mr. Mycroft Holmes name them. He reached the door, and put his hand on the knob.

"As a matter of interest," Mr. Mycroft Holmes said, "how much  _do_ you pay him?"

"You have found the door, sir," I said. "Pray open it."

"Well," he said. "I don't want to tell you your business. But if I were you, I'd give him a rise. If you don't, you see, someone else might. Good afternoon, Mr. Moriarty."

At last, he vanished. I sat in shock for some thirty minutes; and then I began this letter to you. As you can see, I have given you very  _full_ information about my meeting with Mr. Mycroft Holmes, and held nothing back in any other particular. I have made every effort to complete this commission; but even for you, your Lordship, I cannot throw good money after bad. I dismissed Colonel Moran, immediately upon his return from Switzerland, for not knowing when to cut his losses. Had the Colonel seen things as I do, he would never have encouraged my late brother to embark upon that fatal pursuit, and I should not have been deprived of my closest and dearest relation--almost, I may say, (for despite your gracious condescension, my Lord, I would not be so bold as to claim you in that capacity) my only friend. I will, on any other matter you should entrust to me, always endeavor to provide the unimpeachable service indelibly associated with the Moriarty name. But I must beg to be released, my Lord, from any further commissions relating to Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his family.

With gratitude for your custom and humbly thanking you for your indulgence,

MR. ANDREW MORIARTY.

**Author's Note:**

> Karl Marx is said to have observed that everything happens twice, the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. Moriarty's brother the stationmaster is mentioned only once, in "Valley of Fear." I therefore had nothing from canon to go on with him. I had thought about making him a kind of clone of the Sherlock Moriarty to see how he would fare in the ACD canon verse; but I was more taken by the idea of pushing him in the other direction: this boring, uptight, very ordinary little capitalist who's only in it for the money. Also, it's nice to have someone share my frustration with the whole "priority #1 is killing the superhero" thing. Seriously, the villains of Gotham could all get so much more done if they just realized that Batman can't stop EVERYTHING and they could all just work around him and most of the time it would be fine.
> 
> Coleridge, btw, is Porlock from "Valley of Fear." In VOF, Holmes has in informant in Moriarty's organization whose code name is Porlock, and who writes (in code) to warn Holmes about the Birlstone murder. Mycroft's line about giving him a rise refers to the fact that Coleridge is actually already on the Holmes payroll.
> 
> So, Coleridge is deliberately undermining the mission; but Holmes and Watson are also undermining it pretty successfully on their own. Moriarty Minor, being a man of limited intelligence and no imagination, doesn't realize any of this.


End file.
